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Installing a Guest Operating System
Installing a Guest Operating System
A new virtual machine is like a physical computer with a blank hard disk. Before you can use it, you need to partition and format the virtual disk and install an operating system. The operating system's installation program may handle the partitioning and formatting steps for you.
Installing a guest operating system inside your VMware GSX Server virtual machine is essentially the same as installing it on a physical computer. The basic steps for a typical operating system are:
1. Launch the VMware Virtual Machine Console.
2. Insert the installation CD-ROM or floppy disk for your guest operating system.
Note: If you plan to use a PXE server to install the guest operating system over a network connection, you don't need the operating system installation media. When you power on the virtual machine in the next step, the virtual machine detects the PXE server, if one is available on the network. For more information, see
Using PXE with Virtual Machines.
Note: In some host configurations, the virtual machine is not able to boot from the installation CD-ROM. You can work around that problem by creating an ISO image file from the installation CD-ROM. Use the virtual machine settings editor (VM > Settings) to connect the virtual machine's CD-ROM drive to the ISO image file, then power on the virtual machine.
3. Power on your virtual machine by clicking the Power On button.
4. Follow the instructions provided by the operating system vendor.